If Draco bothered himself with every idiot he ran into, he would never get anything done all day.
So he simply ignored the inexplicable hostility and sharp words from the male Head Boy. Yet it was precisely that indifference that ended up stabbing straight into the other boy's fragile ego...
Of course, what mattered most was that Penelope was genuinely angry over such rude behavior.
After giving Draco and the others an apologetic smile, she turned and left without hesitation. She did not want to drag Draco and the others into trouble, and she knew that irritating guy would definitely chase after her.
And that was exactly what happened...
Watching the Head Boy hurry after Penelope in a panic, Pansy cast a maliciously amused glance at Hermione, who was also from Gryffindor.
"Tsk tsk tsk~ Are all Gryffindors like this? Harry Potter was like this, Ron Weasley was like this, and now there's that... hmm, what's-his-name Head Boy?"
When Pansy put it that way, it almost sounded a little convincing.
Faced with Pansy's teasing, Hermione rolled her eyes in irritation.
"This has absolutely nothing to do with which house someone's in, okay? This is entirely a personal issue. And! How much longer are you two planning to hold hands?!"
"Mm... If you want to, I don't think Draco would object."
"Oh, really? Then I— Like hell I would!"
While Pansy and Hermione continued bickering, Ron Weasley, who had been sitting there from beginning to end like a piece of invisible air, finally lifted his eyes in their direction for the first time.
Calling it a lack of presence would be completely wrong. If anything, Ron Weasley was starting to feel increasingly unsettling.
The way he deliberately let his bangs fall to hide his eyes, along with the unstable fluctuations of magic around him, made the surrounding prefects instinctively ignore his existence.
Even when Penelope approached him, she had no idea how to start a conversation with Ron Weasley.
At the very least, Draco would respond a little. This Weasley, on the other hand, completely ignored her. With her good nature, she did not take offense, but she could not help feeling disappointed and confused.
It was precisely this attitude toward Penelope that made Ron Weasley unpopular among the prefects. By only the second meeting, he had already become an outsider among them...
Draco, who had noticed Ron Weasley's odd state long ago, studied him briefly before looking away.
Should I test him?
He had once used the Dark Lord's techniques.
His personality had changed drastically.
The stranger Ron Weasley became, the more Draco suspected that he truly might be under the influence of a Horcrux...
In the end, Draco shook his head.
He did not believe that Dumbledore would be completely unaware.
Wary of alerting the enemy too soon, and concerned about accidentally stepping into a trap deliberately laid by Dumbledore, Draco decided to continue observing for now.
Besides, their strength was still not enough…
…
After the morning meeting ended, Draco and the others headed straight for the dining hall.
Along the way, Hermione kept talking about everything that had happened during the meeting. She probably assumed that the two people beside her had not been paying much attention earlier.
In a way, that was true enough...
"I hope all of this actually works. I can barely remember the last time I cast a spell properly in class."
Draco did not share Hermione's optimism. Just as he had told Pansy before, unless the root of the problem was dealt with, everything they were doing now was nothing more than a temporary fix.
And besides...
"Just watch. This won't end so easily. Our savior is bound to do something shocking again."
"Mm… about Potter, I've heard just how abnormal Umbridge's detentions are. Professor McGonagall has been so angry about her punishments that she's lost her temper more times than anyone can count."
When it came to detention, the Weasley twins had plenty to say on the subject.
If scrubbing every corner of Hogwarts Castle counted as the lightest punishment, then what truly made the Weasley twins shudder was being trapped in the same space as that pink toad.
Umbridge had no intention of using physical punishment. In fact, her detentions were not particularly exhausting or laborious. Instead, she would simply drag you along and talk nonstop about her own beliefs, droning on beside you like an endless chant.
Compared to Filch's punishments, which leaned heavily toward intimidation and petty revenge, this kind of mental torture left the Weasley twins utterly miserable.
Recently, they did not dare get up to any mischief at this time anymore...
And that was exactly what Hermione was getting at.
Compared to the punishments other wizards received, Harry Potter seemed to be getting special treatment from Umbridge.
After Harry Potter finished his detention… no, more accurately, he had only completed one day of it. Two more days of detention were still waiting for him.
Before that, however, Harry Potter had already talked about what the punishment entailed.
Or rather, it was impossible not to bring it up...
"A quill that can injure people."
"I've heard about it too. As far as I know, that quill was originally some wizard's prank aimed at Muggles."
"But it's obvious that this went far beyond a prank."
Although she had grown distant from Harry and the others for various reasons, that did not stop Hermione from feeling sympathy for him or anger over the situation.
Kind-hearted and morally grounded as she was, she did not believe this was something a professor should do, nor did she see it as a proper way to teach.
As the conversation turned toward detentions, Draco and the others realized they had arrived at the dining hall without noticing.
Judging by how few people were there, most of the wizards were probably still in bed.
...
The scene shifted to the Gryffindor common room.
Here, the atmosphere was completely different from Slytherin's.
Warmth and boldness seemed to define the design of this space.
Yet despite it being lunchtime, very few Gryffindors had come downstairs. The handful who remained in the common room were curled up on the sofas, looking utterly drained of energy.
Among them, one wizard sat staring blankly into the fireplace, while the others gathered around him, talking quietly.
The wizard at the center of it all was none other than Harry Potter.
Ever since standing up and trading insults with Umbridge, Harry Potter seemed to have reverted to how he was back in his first year, when he had just started at school.
Admiration and respect could be seen on the faces of the other wizards.
But looking at Harry Potter now, there was no obvious smile on his face. His distracted expression made it seem as though he was waiting for someone to return...